This invention relates generally to the field of integrated circuit design and fabrication. Specifically, the invention relates to ion-assisted oxidation methods and the structures formed thereby.
Silicon oxide is used in integrated circuit (IC) and semiconductor fabrication, especially metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) fabrication, due to its excellent dielectric properties for insulation and field enhancement. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,776,925 and 5,521,126, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. Silicon oxide, both doped and undoped, is especially useful for fabrication of transistors. A transistor is typically fabricated by growing a gate structure containing a gate dielectric and a gate conductor on the surface of a silicon substrate, followed by forming source and drain regions in portions of the substrate flanking the gate structure. Unfortunately, the gate dielectric will be etched partially during the dry etch of the gate conductor. A thinner gate dielectric along the gate conductor edge will degrade the gate dielectric intensity and increase the gate-induced drain leakage. In order to eliminate these problems, the gate dielectric needs to be re-grown.
A high-temperature (greater than about 700xc2x0 C.) oxidation is often used in the IC industry to re-grow the gate dielectric. High-temperature oxidation, however, can cause problems such as changes in impurity profiles, non-uniform oxide thicknesses along the side wall of the gate conductor, and defect formation in the underlying substrate. When certain metals-such as tungsten-are used as the gate conductor, a high temperature oxidation process can form materials-such as tungsten oxide-that are volatile and can cause product yield loss.
Different oxidation techniques, such as plasma oxidation and anodization, have been proposed to reduce the temperature necessary to re-grow gate dielectrics. Most of these low-temperature techniques, however, fail to produce the high-quality gate dielectric necessary to maintain good gate dielectric integrity and low leakage.
The present invention provides methods of oxidization using vertical ion bombardment in an oxidant-containing atmosphere. Specifically, the present invention forms an oxide layer on source and drain regions of a substrate by re-oxidizing an oxide layer previously formed thereon. The re-oxidation is performed by vertically bombarding the previously-formed oxide layer with inert ions in an atmosphere containing at least one oxidant.
The present invention includes an oxidation method which provides an oxide layer on a substrate and then re-oxidizes the oxide layer by vertical ion bombardment in an atmosphere containing at least one oxidant. The oxide layer may be provided over diffusion regions, such as source and drain regions, in a substrate. The oxide layer may also flank a gate structure provided on the substrate. The at least one oxidant may be oxygen, water, ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or a mixture thereof. The atmosphere may also contain hydrogen. The ion bombardment may use krypton (Kr), helium (He), or argon (Ar) ions, at a temperature ranging from about 25xc2x0 C. to about 700xc2x0 C., at an energy ranging from about 100 to about 300 ev, and for a time ranging from about 5 minutes to about 500 minutes.
The present invention permits a high-quality thin oxide layer to be formed at relatively low temperatures when compared with conventional techniques. Low-temperature oxidation leads to fewer thermal stresses, fewer crystal defects, less wafer warpage, and reduction of oxidation-enhanced diffusion. The present invention also allows less oxidation of the sidewalls of conductive layers in transistor gate structures to occur during oxidation. The present invention also facilitates fabrication of a transistor exhibiting lower amounts of current leakage to source and drain regions during operation.